by Lewis Shiner
First published 1993
Ray Shackleford fixes broken stereo equipment in a world where the 1960s dream has crumbled. His garage band days are behind him, his marriage barely survives, and he spends his time remembering better days. Ray obsesses over the music that never got made, the albums that could have changed everything. Then something impossible happens. His tape deck starts recording these phantom songs, capturing the music he only imagined. The recordings pull Ray backward through time, where he encounters Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and the Beatles in moments that never quite happened. As Ray moves between past and present, he must confront not just the lost possibilities of rock history but the choices that shaped his own life. The boundary between what was and what might have been dissolves as Ray discovers that some dreams refuse to stay buried.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, 20th-century, contemporary, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, time-travel
Period: 1960s
331 pages · Hardcover · William Morrow & Company